Carole F. Chase

Carole F. Chase Carole F. Chase of Austin, Texas passed away at St. David's South Austin Hospital during the early morning hours of March 3, 2009. She was 70 years old. Born in Watertown, Wisconsin on September 27, 1938 to parents Eugene and Ann Frattinger, she grew up in the small town of Jefferson, Wisconsin where she attended public school and graduated from Jefferson High School in 1956. She attended the Milwaukee Business School and after graduation moved to Madison where she was employed by the University of Wisconsin. Among her assignments there was secretary to the Dean of the Law School before he moved on to serve in the JFK Administration. On June 6, 1959 she married Phil Chase, then a member of the United States Air Force serving at Madison's Truax Field. After two wonderful years in Madison, they moved on to Chicago where she worked as secretary to a senior vice president at the Boulevard National Bank, while her husband completed school and went to work for The University of Chicago at their Argonne National Laboratory Particle Accelerator Lab. While there, she gave birth to their first son Michael in 1963. From Chicago, the road of life led the family to Boston, New Haven, Connecticut , back to Boston and finally to Austin where they settled in July of 1969. A second son, Peter, was born in March of 1970. She entered the Austin real estate market in the early seventies as an agent, became a realtor and founded West Lake Properties, later moving on to support her husband in management of their manufacturing business. Out of the work place, Carole was heavily involved as a senior official for the American Water Ski Association. She served as Chief Scorer of the South Central Regional Championships and several times as an appointed scorer at the U.S. National Water Ski Championships. Her main love was working collegiate tourn- aments for the National Collegiate Water Ski Association (NCWSA) where she participated in over 100 events, including many Nationals and National All-Star tourna- ments. She was preceded in death by her mother, father, a younger sister Mary and three of her own children who died in childbirth. She is survived by her husband, of nearly 50 years, Phil, her two sons Michael and Peter, who resides in Lakeway with his wife Amy and two beautiful twin daughters, Carly and Chloe, a sister Jane Stetzer of Jefferson, Wisconsin and her brother Joe Frattinger and his wife Sue of Madison, Wis- consin, along with numerous nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews. Known in some local medical circles as "that miracle woman", Carole was a 27-year survivor of breast cancer and a survivor of a terrible auto accident that resulted in her heart stopping for nearly 15 minutes. She survived through a miraculous procedure called hypo- thermia protocol and nearly 3 months in the ICU. Though it left her in a wheelchair with severe myoclonus for the rest of her life, it never broke her spirit. She survived and lived two more years to see and hold her twin grand- daughters who were born last August. Valiant as her last fight was she simply could not defeat the fast-growing small cell carcinoma of the lung that brought her down. Carole was a cigarette smoker and, though she gave it up over 12 years ago, it's what brought her down. One of the last requests she made was "When you see somebody lighting up a cigarette, tell them about me and what I've had to go through." Carole also wanted to thank Dr. Punit Chadha and the entire staff of Texas Oncology for their warm and wonderful support through her four months of chemo. Dr. Allen Sonstein, Dr. James Boysen and the entire staff of St. David's South Austin Hospital who's love, care and support over these last two years meant so much to her. No public services are planned. There will be a Celebration of Life gathering, in Jefferson, Wisconsin on June 6th which was to have been her 50th Wedding Anni- versary. The family suggests that, anyone wishing to do so, should make a donation in Carole's name to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center of Houston. https://www3. mdanderson.org/devoffice/